The present disclosure relates to hospital beds, and particularly to hospital beds that have alert indicators such as lights. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to hospital beds that alert caregivers to different alert conditions of the hospital bed.
Hospital beds having lights to alert caregivers of undesirable conditions are known. For example, the CENTRA™ bed marketed by Hill-Rom Company, Inc. starting in the early 1980's had four light emitting diodes (LED's) at the foot end of the bed in a vertical arrangement which indicated, respectively, an electrical ground loss, bed not in low position, bed motors locked out, and foot brake not set. The LED's were rather small and thus, caregivers needed to view these close up, such as on the order of two feet or closer, in order to read the explanatory text next to each of the LED's.
In recent times, alert lights on beds have been made much larger and conspicuous so that caregivers can easily see these lights from a distance of ten feet or more. Thus, a caregiver is able to view the alert light status from a hallway by looking through a doorway of a patient room. See, for example, U.S. Patent Application Publication Nos. 2012/0105233 A1, 2011/0277242 A1 and 2010/0073168 A1. These more recent types of alert lights typically are illuminated green to indicate that multiple monitored bed conditions are all in a desired state and are illuminated some other color, such as amber or red, to indicate that at least one of the monitored bed conditions is in an undesirable state. However, the caregiver does not know which of the monitored conditions is causing the alert light or lights to be illuminated the color other than green. Instead, the caregiver must know what the monitored conditions are and to make a visual inspection of various bed features to determine which feature needs attention to correct the alert situation.
Based on the foregoing, it will be appreciated that there is room for improvement in connection with alert lights on hospital beds.